


The Boy from the Sky

by Bob_Realms01



Series: Lucid Landscapes [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Stardust (2007), The Wizard of Oz & Related Fandoms
Genre: Crossover, Fantasy, Multi, Multiple Crossovers, Tornado
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:53:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29891085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bob_Realms01/pseuds/Bob_Realms01
Summary: This is the story about an intelligent but peevish boy named Zach who gets pulled into a world beyond anything he has understood. Unbeknownst to him, this world is filled with every single fantasy creation mankind has ever made, whether that be the fantasies of a famous author or the fantasies of a child. On his journey through this land, he will meet several different characters, some of which may be familiar to us but not to him. Who will he meet, and what will become of him? Only one way to find out.
Relationships: The Doctor (Doctor Who) & Original Female Character(s), The Doctor (Doctor Who) & Original Male Character(s)
Series: Lucid Landscapes [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2197902
Kudos: 1





	1. Zach

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first true story I have posted here; the last one was just a parody. I have wanted to write a story like this for a long time, and I am glad to have finally gotten to it. Hopefully, you all enjoy it, and if there is any problem then please tell me. I would like to improve my writing and my storytelling.
> 
> I will add chapters at random times, hopefully once a week or more.

The adventure, as far as I know, began on a particularly boring Wednesday at Harrison-Wayne Private Academy.

The school was an old artifact found in 1912. It was three stories tall, built out of large gray bricks, and had pointed windows like the windows of an old church. The entrance to the school was a tall clock tower with four big brass bells that rang the hour, and every day, students wearing their fancy Harrison-Wayne uniforms would pass through the clocktower to get to their scheduled classes. It was at this school that our main character attends, and his name is Zach.

Zach—full name Zachary Bennett—was currently in the eighth grade. He had attended Harrison-Wayne for most of his life thanks to his father Henry, who claimed that the school was far much better than the public ones. For one thing, it cost thousands to enroll, and anything that had a price tag over four digits long screamed fanciful quality to him. The teachers there were also far more experienced, or so they said, and Henry wanted only the best for his son. Only the best for a son who would soon take his father’s position as manager of Angel City Insurance.

Zach was a very studious boy who took education seriously. He never missed a day of school and he always paid extra attention. Usually, you could find him in class, jotting down whatever the teacher said or wrote down in his notebook. Other times, when class wasn’t in session, you could find him working quietly either in the school library or at one of the outside tables near the blacktop. It was because of all this that Zach was a top student at Harrison-Wayne. He had never gotten anything below an A on his report card, nor could he ever see a moment when he would. He tested in the top 1% and was always fascinating his peers with his knowledge. He even managed to impress some of his teachers . . . or humiliate them. Once, a science teacher with a Ph.D. in biology had told the students that the meteor which sent the dinosaurs into the great beyond had been seen for miles as it smoldered its way to Earth at 40 kilometers a second. Zach, however, stated that since the meteor was traveling at such a speed, no one would have been able to see it coming; it was simply too fast. Zach remembered that moment quite fondly, especially the moment when he sent the teacher mumbling quietly back to his desk.

Zach had little to no imagination whatsoever; his mind was only filled with facts. The only books he liked were books with charts and graphs and old black-and-white photos from a bygone era. The only things he liked to talk about were adult things like statistics and politics and health. And the only people he liked to talk to were people who were like him. The valedictorians, for example, or the ones in the school’s debate club were his personal favorites.

The staff of Harrison-Wayne held a deep respect for Zach because he never stepped out of line and always obeyed everything they said. They also felt deeply concerned for him as well, for he was always alone and never really held any conversations with anyone. Once, an English teacher had tried to understand why Zach was like this. As the boy was stuffing his textbooks—which, like the school, cost a fortune—into his backpack, the teacher sat on the desk to Zach’s right and began to talk.

“So, Zach, how’s your father? I heard he’s doing very well at Angel Insurance.”

Zach looked up at the teacher for a brief moment, then went on packing. Undeterred, the teacher continued.

“Not quite the talker, eh? I can relate. I was just like you when I was a kid. Don’t worry, there’s no one around to hear us, but us.”

For a moment, there was more silence from the boy, then: “My father’s doing fine, I suppose. Are you asking because you’re curious, or are you trying to get something out of me? I know many teachers have tried before.”

Quite the kid, the teacher thought. He went on. “I’m just trying to have a friendly conversation, that’s all. Anyhow, do you have any interests? Any friends to hang out with after school? I always see you alone.”  
Zach put his backpack, fully loaded with his books, onto his desk and said: “I’m just fine where I am right now, thank you.”

“With no friends? Everyone here has at least one friend. You sure you’re alright?” the teacher asked.

“I don’t have time for them, sorry. Most of the people here are foolish anyway. Only the valedictorians here seem to have a firm grasp of what’s really important,” Zach answered.

“And what do you mean by that?”

“Well, most of the people here seem to be obsessed with, well, things that are just childish. The only books I see them read are about stupid things like dragons and magic, and the only things they seem to talk about are their video games or television shows about people blowing each other up. Just pointless things, in general. I don’t understand why they like it when there’s so much knowledge and facts that could do them a lot better.”

The teacher sighed lightly, then said: “I see what you mean. You like a practical world, huh?”

Zach nodded.

“You think those things are making us ignore the real things of the world, is that it?”  
Zach nodded again.

“Well, I can see where you’re coming from, but I can’t help but not agree. I personally believe that those things help make the world a more colorful place. Besides, I think that they help kids a whole lot. Saves them a lot of stress and makes them more creative, more imaginative. I’m sure even the valedictorians like them.”

Zach put his backpack on. With all the books inside, it sagged to his rear. He didn’t seem to care. “Well, _I_ don’t like them. I can’t see the point of things like imagination, especially when we have things like logic around, but I guess I’ll never really understand. Now, I have to go or else my parents will be angry. Good day, sir.”

As Zach walked to the door, the teacher said from behind him: “Logic will take you from point A to point B. Imagination will take you everywhere—Albert Einstein.”

Zach, not turning around or stopping, had replied calmly: “Everywhere, but a place where you can make your own quotes instead of stealing from smarter, better people.”

This moment, like the meteor one, was also remembered quite fondly.

* * *

Zach lived with his father and mother in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in West L.A. at a two-story house painted red. On the first floor was the foyer, the living room, the kitchen, the dining room, and a bathroom. In the second story, there were two more bathrooms, Zach’s bedroom, his parent’s bedroom, and the office. Ten rooms in total. It wasn’t the biggest house on the block, but it was big enough for Zach’s father to host small cocktail parties with pride.

Henry Bennett was a 40-something-year-old man with combed dark-brown hair, a thin but imposing body, and blue eyes sharp enough to cut through cold stone. His face still had its youthful charm to it, but Henry could see the first deep grooves of old age begin to make their way across his face. On most days, he could be seen wearing his black business suit and red tie, both neatly ironed and without any wrinkles whatsoever. He usually walked with his jaw pointed up and his back as straight as a stalk of bamboo.

Whenever he wasn’t hollering at a co-worker who screwed up at Angel City Insurance, he was making sure Zach stayed in line. At some point in his life, Henry became convinced that almost every single piece of media, whether it be books or films, turned everyone who viewed it into fools and morons, and the last thing he wanted was his son becoming one as well. He made sure to burn his message into Zach’s head when he was very young, and he was pleased with the results—although it needed a little reinforcing every now and then. On some days Zach would come home sad, and when Henry asked why, Zach would say it was because he had no friends and nothing to do. In response, Henry would always say the same thing: “Just remember, Zach: If you ever feel alone, just know that you are alone because you don’t follow the flock and stick your nose in their crap. You are a Bennett, and Bennetts always succeed because they don’t follow stupid trends like them, got it?”

The other member of Zach’s family was his mother, Melissa Bennett. She was, like her husband, also a 40-something-year-old but twice as skinny. Her face was a small, timid pale moon with two hazel eyes peering out of it. Her bony arms and legs looked as though skin had just been slapped onto a skeleton. And her messy blonde hair fell down her sides and ended at her tiny breasts. 

Usually, Melissa could be found in the living room, sitting on the sofa and watching her favorite game shows on the flat-screen TV (game shows, Henry said, were an exception). Standing in front of her always was a foldable table with dozens upon dozens of pill bottles, each labeled different things. Sitting beside the pill bottles would be the pills themselves, neatly arranged into dozens of small piles like hard candy and ready to be swallowed. She had lost count of just how many types of pills she took, but it didn’t really matter because, at the end of the day, she felt as healthy as a horse . . . until the urge to swallow came back. When that happened, she would sweat herself into a frenzy until the time to take her pills came by; the fear of sickness was simply too great, too overwhelming. This cycle had repeated itself for God knew how long, and both Zach and her husband were impressed at how she kept herself from overdosing.

Being a hypochondriac, Melissa believed that the world was just waiting to infect you with every disease it held up its sleeve the moment you stepped out of your house, and she didn’t want Zach falling for its dirty tricks. Just as her husband lectured Zach about the dangers of fools, Melissa lectured Zach about the dangers of sickness. Whenever he came home from school, the first thing she would ask him was not how his day went or if he had passed the exam he studied weeks for but if he had interacted with anyone at school. If he answered this question with a yes, then she would ask him what exactly he had done. Her reaction depended on his response. Sometimes she would simply shrug her shoulders, and other times she would go into mad hysterics and burst into agonized tears. This latter reaction would usually end with Zach tearing up as well—he could not bear to see his mother crying—and he would approach her and hug her dearly, telling her that he was sorry—sorry for playing tag with some of the bigger kids or riding Franklin Ruiz’s bike or trying the monkey bars because they can lead to injury and injury leads to infection which leads to illness. Once her bawling turned into sniffling, she would hug him tightly as if it was the last time she ever would and tell him to never— _never_ —break her rules again. It was her show of misery that kept Zach in line—the thought of seeing her upset was simply too large—and for the most part, he never stepped out of it.

One would expect a kid with parents like these would run away at the moment their backs were turned, but Zach never felt that urge. He couldn’t run away even if he wanted to; he had no one to flee to, not even relatives. You could say that he despised his parents underneath all of his pompous swagger, but you would be wrong because he never felt it; his love for them was simply too deep. They were the only family he had; and with that knowledge in check, he thought it best to follow their examples.

There were _times,_ however . . .

Times when that urge to _break_ , that urge to maybe just _reach out_ and grasp at something new and different—something that wasn’t just knowledge and facts and phobias but human connection and experience—came to be. These urges came randomly, but whenever Zach felt them he could not resist them, like how a moth cannot resist the call of a light. Despite all of his parents' constant banter about how he couldn’t do this and that, despite all that he believed in, he had heeded their calls over a hundred times or more and remembered them all.

Take, for example, the basketball day. On that day the teachers had let everyone out an hour early. They claimed it was because of an “impromptu staff meeting,” but the students swore the real reason they cut the day short was that they did not want to waste their time teaching on such a beautiful day. 

And what a beautiful day it had been! The air was a bit warm, but a cool breeze helped to alleviate it. There was not a cloud in the sky, and the air quality seemed to be much cleaner than normal. All the colors of the world, from the green of the grass to the blue of the sky, appeared to be brighter and more vibrant, and everyone looked to be in good humor.

On most school days Zach would be picked up by his father, but since he was at work and his mother was too afraid to drive, he decided to walk home. Going west towards the richer middle-class streets where he lived, he passed Graywood Park. Usually, the park would be full of kids from both Harrison-Wayne and other schools around the area, but today it seemed to be extra crowded despite Zach’s thoughts that only his school let out. It seemed as if everybody in the area decided to drop what they were doing and go outside.

As he walked by, thinking his usual thoughts about blind deep-sea fish and how trains operated, a voice had called out from his right: “Hey, Zach, you wanna join us?” Zach turned and saw three people at the basketball court. They were Jack Hao, Olivia Nelson, and Eddie Kent—schoolmates of his. Jack had a basketball in the crook of his elbow and was looking at Zach. “You wanna come?” he called again. Instinctively, Zach responded, his voice high and full of that well-educated articulation: “I don’t have time for that game, sorry. Besides, I have to go home. My parents will be angry if I don’t show up.”

Jack took a few steps forward, the sun gleaming in his smooth black hair. “C’mon man, just twenty minutes maybe? How about ten, does that sound fine?” he asked.

For a moment Zach thought for sure the word that would come out of his mouth would be “no,” but then he considered the offer. It had been a long time since he had been invited to join a game, and he wasn’t exactly at the top of the list when people chose teammates—he had his father’s skinniness and his mother’s rabbit face to thank for that. He always thought that games like basketball were stupid, and yet he could not help but enjoy them as well. All of the quick, flowing movement; all of the high, raw energy—he could not help but be enticed by their unpredictable charm. And whenever he saw someone play a game either in the park or on the school blacktop, he always dedicated at least five minutes to just watching them, sometimes even wishing he was with them. 

“Is this some sort of trick, Jack?” Zach asked. He knew that sometimes kids like him were chosen to simply shag balls, and he did not want to look embarrassing, especially with so many people around.

“What are you talking about, man?” Jack responded. “I’m just looking for someone so that we have four people. Now, are you coming or not?”

Once again, Zach thought it over. Twenty minutes? How long had it been since he had left school? About five minutes, perhaps. Judging by the amount of time it would take for him to reach home from the park, plus the amount of time he _may_ spend with Jack, Zach predicted that he would be home in thirty minutes, give or take. That meant he could spend even more time with Jack than just twenty. But what if he were to come home all sweaty and hot? What would his parents say then? Would his mother shake and sob? Would his father bellow with rage for not simply calling or waiting at school? What if—

“Is he alright?” Olivia asked, looking at Zach with perplexion.

“Dunno, it looks like he just . . . froze,” Jack said. “I guess that means he’s not joining.” 

When Zach heard this, he began to move. . . towards the park. He could not believe that he was doing it, and yet he took no aim to stop it; the desire to play had officially won out. As he crossed the grass between the sidewalk and the basketball court, a plan had just finished forming in his mind: he would play for twenty minutes, and then he would go back to the school as if the day had ended normally and wait for his father. If he asked why no one else was waiting for their parents, then he, Zach, would tell him what the school had done while adding that he decided to stick around for his education. The plan seemed to be perfect enough, and for a brief moment, he felt extremely guilty for creating it. Of course, he had done so before plenty of times . . .

Eddie noticed Zach coming and tapped Jack’s shoulder. “Well, well, well,” he said. “He really is coming after all.”

Jack turned, saw Zach, and grinned brightly. “Couldn’t resist, huh? How long are we going to play?”

“Twenty,” Zach said.

“Sounds good, man. By the way” —Jack held out a hand— “I’m Jack. This here is Eddie, and that’s Olivia.”

“I know who you all are,” Zach said, shaking it. “I have you for class, I think.”

“Yeah, but I think it’s nice to introduce yourself properly. Anyways, do you want to play Twenty-one, or just play to twelve or something like that?” Jack asked. He bounced the ball to Zach, who caught it and admired its dimpled surface. To him, it was like a foreign object from another land.

“I’ll just do twelve, I think. I haven’t really played the game, but I do know how it works,” Zach answered, removing his backpack and putting it behind the foul line.

“Alright then,” Jack said. He ran over to Zach and snatched the ball from him. “Watch out!” he laughed, and threw it towards the basket. It bounced off the metal rim.

“Great shot, Jack,” Olivia said. “Your skills are unmatched.”

“Shut up,” he said, his face reddening a bit. “You’re just mad that I beat you yesterday.” 

Olivia, taking no offense, giggled. Eddie said: “Yeah, with my help.”

Jack walked over to Zach, who was standing in the middle of the court, looking slightly confused about what just happened. Jack bounced the ball to him again. “Sorry,” he said. “I was just messing with you back there. Now show us what you got.”

Remembering all the past games he had seen, Zach bounced the ball towards the net and then threw it with both hands. It arched through the air, hit the backboard, and went through. Zach lit up.

“Heck yeah, Zach! Good one!” Eddie yelled. The others cheered with him. Zach could not help but smile as the ball fell back to the cement. He didn’t really know why, but seeing the ball go through the net just felt so satisfying. He wanted to make it happen again. Quickly, he grabbed the ball and tossed it to the net. It went in. He threw it a third time, and this time it ricocheted off the backboard and flew back at an angle. When that happened, he turned to the three, but none of them looked discouraged. In fact, they looked quite impressed.

“You’re not too bad, man,” Jack said. “Want to play a real game now?”

“Yeah,” Zach said almost immediately. “Let’s do twelve, just like I said. And if there’s still time left, we can go to more. Is that fine?”

“Sure. Want us to go easy?” Jack asked.

“I think . . . I’ll be fine, actually, so no.”

“Alright then, Zach, let’s go!” Jack cheered. He had retrieved the ball and threw it back to Zach. “Olivia’s on Eddie’s team, and I’ll be on yours.”

* * *

Zach played for a lot longer than he anticipated. The energy and joy of the game were simply too much for him to focus on anything else.

As they played the afternoon away, Zach slowly took in his surroundings—children playing happily on the playground, families hosting barbecues at the wooden trestle tables or feeding the ducks at the lake, a group of older kids playing soccer in the big green field. It felt as if this whole entire setting had been ripped from some cheesy summer magazine cover, and yet it was all very real. And for once in a long while, Zach didn’t want to spend the day in his room, studying away the hours, his head hanging over a series of papers and schoolbooks. He was too enthralled with simply being outdoors with others his age.

Enthralled . . . until a shrill voice had screeched: _“ZACHARY ELMER BENNETT, WHAT ARE YOU DOOOOOING???”_

Zach froze right in the middle of the basketball court, ball in hand, along with Jack, Olivia, Eddie, and pretty much everyone else in the park. They all turned in the direction of the voice and saw Zach’s mother quickly make her way to the court, her face full of mad horror, as if she had just seen some sort of Lovecraftian monster. Behind her was her car, a dark-blue Honda Accord with the driver’s door swung open. Zach felt his stomach drop to his crotch and a cold sweat form on his brow.

I guess she got the courage to drive, after all, he thought glumly.

Melissa made her way to her son, the heels of her shoes clicking on the cement. Everyone watched quietly as she gripped her son’s arm with her claw-like fingers, causing the ball he was holding to drop. She yanked him over to her.

“What . . . are . . . you . . . _doing_ here, young man?” she demanded, her face close to his. “You’re supposed to be home by now!”

Zach felt his mouth shake. He stammered: “M—m—mom. . .”

“Did you think that I wouldn’t find out what the school did? Janet Olsen told me. Her daughter came home early so I thought you would do the same,” she said. Zach noticed that her voice was slightly slurred, presumably because she had taken her daily dosage of Valiums. 

“And what are you playing? Basketball? Zach, you know how dangerous basketball is, haven’t I said so?”

Zach still could not speak, but now it wasn’t because of his mother; it was because of everyone staring at the two of them. He could actually feel their eyes crawling all over them, and it made his face feel as though it was set ablaze. Finally, after finding his tongue, he managed: “Mom . . . shouldn’t we, uh . . . maybe take this somewhere else?” 

Wrong question. Melissa snarled: “Don’t you ignore me, young man! You know very well that I’ve told you how dangerous basketball is! And yet you’re here, doing it anyway! You should be ashamed!”

“Mom, I’ve been playing for a while now, and I’m not hurt at all,” Zach said meekly.

Jack, who felt incredibly sorry for Zach, walked over to Melissa, mustered up all of his courage, and said: “Yeah, Mrs. Bennet, we’ve been playing for like . . . an hour, and he’s doing fine.”

Melissa turned to Jack, her eyes full of fire. “Shut up! Just _shut up!_ Don’t you speak to me unless you have permission!” she snapped. She returned her attention to Zach and said, pointing to Jack: “Do you know this boy?”

“Yes. He’s an . . . acquaintance of mine from school. I have a few classes with him.”

“But you don’t _know_ him, do you?”

“Well . . .”

Melissa put her arms on Zach’s shoulders. In her eyes, he could see tears beginning to form. Please not here, he thought worriedly. Anywhere but here, mom.

“Zach, you know you’re not supposed to be with people you don’t know. I’ve told you that a hundred times or more, and yet you . . . you . . .” 

She looked to be on the verge of sobbing, and Zach felt like he was going to sob as well, but out of embarrassment rather than pity for his mother; everyone was continuing to look and look, with some even recording the two of them on their phones. He might have yelled at them to buzz off if his mother hadn’t said “Let’s just go, Zach, I’ve had enough for today. Just wait till your father gets home and hears about this” and pulled him towards her car, muttering hotly under her breath. As she pulled, Zach took one sad, final glance at the park before she pushed him into the passenger seat and drove away. 

After the two of them had gone, everyone who had witnessed them found that they could not quite enjoy their extra-pleasant afternoon.

* * *

That night, while he laid in bed, Zach had reflected on the events of the day.

His father had yelled at him for disrespecting his mother and attempting to pull a curtain over his eyes.

His mother had wailed, telling him that he had broken her heart yet again, that he had put himself in danger of sickness, and how she couldn’t lose her precious son.

The two of them had railed on Zach for most of the late afternoon, and finally, after they wore themselves out, Henry sent Zach up into his room, ordered him to study and only study, and then slammed the door shut. He was only allowed down for dinner. 

As he pulled the sheets to his chin, Zach wondered whether or not his parents were in the right for pressuring him so much about the basketball game. He supposed they were. After all, basketball was a game, a game where people got hurt—maybe not a whole lot, but the risk was there; he could see that now. And it was a stupid thing, that game—a stupid thing like all the other things the kids at his school did. He felt terrible shame for his little stunt and intense self-loathing at the thought of even considering it in the first place. 

Shame and self-loathing—it was these two feelings that usually marked the end of _reaching out._ Much like how a kid might feel shame for stealing a candy bar in a store or ditching class to smoke a joint in the bathroom, Zach felt shame after every one of his times _reaching out._ How was he, a boy who flew past every test given to him and had an intellect that could rival some of the best teachers at Harrison-Wayne, able to be tempted by things so lowly and unprofessional? The thought always made him want to shrivel up into a raisin, as he was feeling that night after the game. Only a night’s rest would make it go away, and when he woke up the next morning with the sunlight beaming through his bedroom window, he was back to the old Zach—cold and utterly devoid of any sort of nonsense.

And yet, there was a part of him—a very small part, really—that would say he enjoyed _reaching out_ very much. Very much indeed.


	2. The Storm

So now we return to that particularly Wednesday where everything began. Why was it so boring, you ask? Well, for starters, the whole day seemed to be moving at a slug’s pace; every class seemed to go on and on and on. Even worse was that there was nothing to be excited about after school. The day was exceedingly hot, and the air quality was so bad that anyone with even half a brain thought it best to just stay indoors and watch TV. Of course, one might expect a kid nowadays to have no problem with that, but after the rather splendid day that was about a week ago, everybody, right down to the most introverted of kids, wanted to go outside.

The students of Mr. Bradley’s pre-algebra class were bracing for an extra-boring day because it was test day, and that meant answering over a hundred different problems in tiny print on sheets of paper. Almost everyone had studied the night away and were exhausted as they filled Mr. Bradley’s room and sat at their desks. Only one student seemed to be wide awake and ready, and I don’t think it takes a genius to figure out which one it was . . .

Zach took his seat near the back of the classroom and immediately began reviewing his notes, cutting himself off completely from the conversations the other students were having while Mr. Bradley did some last-minute preparations. As he was scanning a particularly difficult set of equations, he saw Jack enter the classroom from his right. He had not spoken to Jack ever since the basketball day, which had happened about a week ago. Not that he blamed him for the big fuss his mother had made—he had, after all, heeded Jack’s call like a lamb to a slaughter. But after the lecture his parents had given him, Zach thought it best to just stay away from kids like Jack. It would be better, he assumed, for both his health and his intellect.

Overhead, the bell rang.

* * *

It was about thirty minutes into class when it all started.

Everyone’s attention was on their tests, their noses pointed downwards, their faces either expressionless or full of anxiety. Some were answering questions by filling out blank dots labeled from A to D; others were writing out problems on a piece of scratch paper Mr. Bradley had provided. And a few were simply staring at their tests as if all the answers might come to them out of the blue. In the back of the classroom, Zach was flying past every problem thrown at him with quiet satisfaction. At its front, Mr. Bradley sat at his desk, calmly working on his computer and occasionally taking peeks at his students.

If you were sitting where Mr. Bradley was, you would have seen a row of three pointed windows to your right. These windows gave way to the basketball court just below the classroom and the field beyond it. Marking the end of the field—and Harrison-Wayne’s property as well—was a tall wooden fence. Beyond the fence was the neighborhood, with its fancy modern houses and their swimming pools. 

As the minutes slowly ticked by, Mr. Bradley, his eyes strained and tired of staring at the monitor, decided to take a quick glance out the window. What he saw glued him to it: clouds—big black thunderheads—on the horizon. They were far away, but he could see that they were quickly approaching the school like a stampede of dark horses. Puzzled, Mr. Bradley decided to look up the forecast to see if there had been a mishap—it had promised an entirely sunny day with no clouds whatsoever—and came away even more puzzled: the forecast still declared that the day would be completely sunny. Mr. Bradley scratched his head the way a cartoon character would when they were confused and looked back out the window.

A thick caul of rain was now drizzling down from the thunderheads. From within them, Mr. Bradley saw small, bright flashes of white light. Following these flashes was the unmistakable rumble of thunder that sent adrenaline pumping through Mr. Bradley’s system; he had always enjoyed the sound of thunder, and whenever a storm passed over he would always open a window or two at home. This adrenaline, however, felt rather unwelcome. It was unwelcome because this storm seemed to have just come right out of the blue. He turned towards his students and saw that some of them were looking out in awe and disbelief. A few were mumbling to themselves and each other.

“Go back to your tests, everybody. It’s just a little summer rain,” Mr. Bradley said with some uncertainty. He looked back outside and saw that the clouds were now very close, dwarfing the school with their tremendous size. They had just passed the wooden fence and were now above the field, soaking the grass with their heavy rain.

A thick, jagged bolt of lightning suddenly streaked its way down to the earth, briefly lighting up the classroom and startling some of the students. The thunderclap after it was deafening compared to the rumbles Mr. Bradley had heard earlier, causing the whole classroom to tremble as if it were a living creature afraid of the sound. This was followed by more lightning bolts. And after each, more pounding thunderclaps.

At last, the clouds were now over the school, blotting out the sun and turning day into the late evening. The rain they showered tapped the windows and sounded like rattling pebbles as it hit the roof. The lightning was now so close that it left purple-black afterimages in the eyes of anyone who saw it directly. And now all of Mr. Bradley’s class watched the storm as it raged on around them, except for a very irritated Zach.

The rain and lightning continued on for about five minutes, and then it all stopped together as if God had pulled the storm’s plug. The clouds, however, remained, but they were now a strange greenish-gray color. Mr. Bradley looked out and saw the edge of the clouds in the distance with a pale blue sky beyond them. 

Storm’s over, I guess, he thought.

* * *

While the rest of the class marveled at the show the clouds were putting on, Zach was having difficulty focusing. He had always had a problem focusing when things, especially loud things, were going on around him, which is why he always preferred the quietest spaces possible. Once the test had begun, Zach had expected total silence save for the occasional cough or throat-clearing from one of his classmates, but not the storm. It seemed to have come just for the sole purpose of bugging him, driving his attention away from the test, which was a big chapter-test. Of course, Zach could have flopped it and still passed the class with an A; but as we already know, Zach was a boy who took everything the school threw at him very seriously. He did not want anything to impede his chances of success, and he hated it when something did.

When the thunder first came quietly, Zach simply ignored it, thinking it was maybe a truck with a bad engine or someone rolling a garbage can up their driveway. Once it had gotten closer and louder, all of the critical thinking skills in his head had become jumbled, as if they had been put into a blender. What made it worse was the thunderclaps, which seemed to toss any equations or numbers out of his memory when they hit, leaving him stuck on problems that he could have easily solved with a single stroke: _Boom!_ There goes all of problem 25. _Crack!_ Oops, it seems that Zach forgot what the quadratic formula was. What made it _especially_ worse, however, was everyone voicing their opinions on the storm, none of them even trying to sound discreet despite Mr. Bradley’s objections.

“Woah, that nearly scared the shit out of me.”

“Jesus, that blinded me.”

“I thought it was gonna be sunny today.”

“I’m scared, Ashley, can you hold my hand?”

It took all of Zach’s willpower to not lose his composure and yell at them to be quiet, but that willpower was fading. Fading fast.

* * *

It finally broke about three minutes after the storm had passed.

Everyone was slowly returning to their tests, their little conversations quieting. Zach felt relaxation pass over him and his anger diminish as he turned back to his own test, quickly piecing together all of the thoughts that had been broken due to all the constant banter and thunder.

And then someone shouted at the top of his lungs: “ _Tornado! Jesus Christ, there’s a tornado!”_

That did it. Zach looked up from his test as quick as a blink and said, or rather shouted as loud as the tornado yeller: _“Will you all just be quiet and let me work for once?”_

Michael Wilson, he of the second row, said: “But dude, there really is one! Look!” He pointed out the window. Several of the students looked towards his finger, but Zach didn’t.

“That’s absurd, Michael,” he said. “A tornado in California is an extremely rare thing. The air is too dry and the wind shears are too weak for one to occur. Besides, we’re near the mountains. A tornado is impossible in this area.”

“But look, man! Look!” Michael jabbed his finger towards the window and Zach finally looked out, exasperated and rolling his eyes at Michael’s utter foolishness.

Except he wasn’t being foolish at all.

A huge gray funnel cloud at least a thousand feet high had formed above the neighborhood, it's bottom thinner and longer than the top. It was rotating very quickly, carrying with it dust and small debris. It wasn’t touching the ground just yet, but Zach could tell that it was very close to doing so and watched it with a mixture of shock and confusion. Others were doing the same as well, some of them walking up to the windows to get a better look.

“T—that’s impossible,” Zach muttered. He tried to retain his schoolboy calmness but found it slightly difficult. “It’s a fake, right? It’s all just some sort of cheap special effect, is that it?”

No one answered.

“Is someone going to speak up? Jack, tell me, is this some sort of prank you’re all playing?”

Still no answer. Zach grew impatient. “Is someone going to say anything or not?” he demanded.

“Well, what do you want us to tell you?” Jack said, almost hysterically. Zach did not say anything more and watched as the funnel cloud—now a full-on tornado—finally touched down right on top of a house, tearing off its roof and then shattering the rest of it to splinters of wood and lath. He saw its pieces quickly spiral their way up the tornado and quickly disappear into its murky clouds. At this, someone next to Zach yelled “We gotta get out of here!” and quickly sprinted out the door, completely ignoring their things. The rest of the class ignored them and only watched as the tornado slowly made its way through the neighborhood, fascinated by it, almost hypnotized.

The alarm suddenly sprang to life, bringing about shrill buzzes that made some of the girls squeal and jump. Mr. Bradley, who had been watching the tornado as still as a mannequin in a shop window, finally began to take action. “Alright, everybody, let’s get outta here fast. Move, people, move!” he shouted. He clapped his hands and everyone went. Zach left his desk just as the tornado tore another house to pieces and lifted up a blue car as if it had been made of styrofoam. As he was heading to the door, he heard the windows rattle madly in their frames as if begging to be let open.

The hallway was filled with students all running west towards the stairs like a school of fish in a channel, many of them shouting and screaming incoherently. A few tripped and fell and were trampled. A few more were standing around with their heads up high, searching for their friends or their love interests. Zach paid no attention to any of these people and quickly jumped into the tight river of uniform-clad students, desperate to flee. All around him, all around everyone, the alarm blared on and on like a lunatic cicada whose chirp has been amplified.

Down the hall Zach went, feeling as though he was being squeezed by all the jostling warm bodies as they made their way to the junction that led to the stairs. About halfway to the junction, something snagged his train of thought the way a rosebush snags a shirt and made him stop cold. His books. He had forgotten his books, the ones that cost his father a hefty price to buy. They were still in his bag, and he had left his bag next to his desk in his haste. Quickly, he turned around and started to head back to the classroom, not minding all of the students bumping into his shoulders left and right. When he was near the door, a hand gripped his arm. It was the English teacher who had had a conversation with him about imagination. He looked calm, but frantic as well.

“What are you doing? Don’t you see what’s going on out there?”

Zach tried to pull from the teacher’s grasp but could not. “I have to get my books! They’re in there!” He pointed to the doorway.

“Do they matter right now?” the teacher asked.

“Yes, they do. Now let me go!” Zach pulled his arm again, this time much more strongly, and he slipped from the teacher’s grip. The teacher tried to protest, but Zach ignored him and dipped into the classroom.

Crazy kid, the teacher thought. He ran down the hall and flew down the stairs.

* * *

Outside it was chaos.

Students were spilling out Harrison-Wayne’s front door and fleeing in all directions of the compass, some by car and some by foot. The wind was incredibly powerful, forcing trees to bow in its direction and carrying with it old newspapers, grocery bags, dead leaves, and other pieces of junk. North of the school was the tornado, which was still in the neighborhood but had moved to its edge. It was enormous now, rivaling the size of even the biggest tornadoes recorded. As it went along, it shredded up more houses and picked up trees and lampposts and vehicles and threw them wildly in the air like a child having a bad temper-tantrum. It sounded like an oncoming monster train that refuses to stop even when its operators attempt to make it. And below it was a huge brown cloud of dirt and dust that moved wherever it went.

While running towards her house to warn her father, Olivia Nelson saw a huge portion of a fence—the fence that made up Harrison-Wayne’s border—fly at her from her left and ducked; had she not, she would have been decapitated. It flew over her head and hit the asphalt, turning into pointed wooden stakes.

After recovering from this near-death experience, Olivia took a glance behind her and saw the rest of the fence in the tornado, looking like a long, flat, brown snake. It tried to curl around the tornado, failed, and then broke into three big pieces that were swallowed by the tornado’s rotating clouds.

Olivia turned back and made a run for it.

* * *

When Zach re-entered the classroom, he made the mistake of looking out the window and was once again mesmerized by the tornado. It seemed to make everything around him nonexistent and make him watch as it did its violent work.

It had just destroyed the property fence and was now barreling its way across the field, bringing up with it large chunks of dirt as it did so. It was like a demon of wind, fascinating and furious, tearing up anything and everything simply because it could. It meant to charge through the school just as it had charged through the neighborhood as if to show off its raw, undaunted power to the tiny humans who viewed it. Zach felt the floor below him shake harder and harder the closer it got.

The tornado reached the blacktop, where six tall basketball hoops stood, as if in defiance. It tore them out of the ground one by one indifferently like a dentist pulling out rotten teeth from a mouth. Upon seeing this, Zach snapped out of his mesmerization and realized just how long he had been watching the tornado—it had seemingly stolen away his perception of time as well. He ran to his desk, snatched up his backpack by the strap, and quickly made his way back to the door, first by running parallel to the windows as they vibrated madly to the point of bursting.

Then it happened.

One of the windows had finally gotten tired of being closed up and swung itself open inwards, the latch breaking off of it and falling to the floor with a _tink_ that was inaudible in the howling wind. The window slammed into Zach’s face as he was running, causing him to stagger backward in disarray and slump onto a desk. As he clutched his forehead in pain his vision grew blurry, and he felt an incredible dizziness sweep over him as the tornado finally made contact with the classroom, breaking all of the windows and showering him with small shards of glass. Then his vision grew darker and darker, and finally, he blacked out completely.

The last thing he heard was the sound of breaking plaster.

* * *

Zach woke up a few minutes later with a throbbing headache. He felt something swelling on the place above his left eye and felt a sting when he touched it: a small bruise had grown there and would probably stay there for at least a few days. He could not remember what had happened to him; one minute he was running away from the tornado, and the next he was on the floor, looking up at the ceiling. Then he heard the roaring wind, and that reminded him of just how close the tornado was to touching the school. At this, he got up as quickly as he could, his hand gripping the edge of his desk to help lift himself up, his consciousness still murky but slowly returning.

Looking out the window yet again, Zach saw a huge wall of swirling gray clouds going from right to left. They made his headache fly out of his head completely like a bird released from its cage and woke him up fully. They almost made him stand frozen in awe yet again, but this time they didn’t hold him for long.

The tornado! Zach thought, frightened. It hasn’t touched the school just yet! I still might be able to get away! Quickly and without much thought, Zach turned away and resumed his previous course of action—he grabbed his backpack, ran parallel to the windows, stepping over small fragments of glass while doing so, and reached the door. Once there, he yanked it open expecting to see the hallway on the other side. What he saw instead both shocked and perplexed him: Another wall of swirling clouds going from right to left. They seemed to be higher than the ceiling and lower than the floor, and when Zach poked his head out the door he saw nothing else but them.

Perhaps, he thought, the tornado is already here! It’s going to tear apart the school! For a moment he shut his eyes, believed that all was lost, and waited for the destruction of his classroom and his inevitable death. One second passed; then two; then three. Nothing happened. Confused, Zach looked around again and then cautiously peered downwards, trembling lightly. He saw that the clouds were all racing around a tiny brown spot far below him, and that was what made him understand.

He was not just close to the tornado; he was _in_ the tornado.

Somehow, through some extravagant miracle, the tornado had picked up his entire classroom and sent it, along with him, hurling hundreds of feet in the air.

Once this got through Zach’s head, he screamed, slammed the door shut, and then propped his back against it, trying to get a grasp of his new alien situation. He felt like a man who has uncovered every mystery of the world suddenly discover something even he could not fathom. His whole body felt weak, as though the tornado had sucked all of the energy out of him. The only noise he made came from his deep panting.

After sliding down the door and landing on his rear, Zach tried to find some sort of justification for everything around him. Perhaps he was simply dreaming in bed at home, or maybe he had eaten a bad piece of food—he had eaten a breakfast of sausage and eggs—and was now feeling the effects rather intensely. Or maybe everything around him was real and he was going to become one of those lucky people who managed to survive the unthinkable. He knew people who had survived scenarios that would otherwise kill a man—lightning strikes and tsunamis and skydiving accidents and, well, tornados. But he couldn’t be a part of that, now could he? He knew that tornados could pick up things that weighed tons as easily as one picks up a plastic toy, but he also knew that most buildings were toast when going against them. Even if a building managed to remain in one piece while being sucked up by one, it would only remain in one piece for a very short time. 

So, with this thought in mind, Zach sat frozen and waited—waited for the classroom to break apart and hurl into doom. He sat for a minute that felt more like an hour, his head down, and when nothing happened—again—he looked in front of him and through the broken windows.

He saw all kinds of things flying about, things he couldn't really recognize because they were flying so quickly. Upon seeing them Zach felt an unusual sort of curiosity build up inside of him. Despite knowing that he was inside one of the most powerful types of storm known to man, some absurd, insane part of him wanted to get a closer look at what exactly the things in the tornado were. 

No, no, don’t do that, he thought, shaking his head, and yet he could not help but slowly rise up and head towards the window, the room wobbling slightly but otherwise remaining surprisingly steady. Walking past the desks, he saw that the classroom was still arranged, somehow, save for the test papers and pencils strewed everywhere. Above him, the lights swayed back and forth lightly.

Looking into the huge swirling shaft of the tornado, the wind blowing through his brown hair, Zach saw all of the things one would expect to find—uprooted trees, pieces of buildings, and the like—and more . . . unusual, if not _impossible_ things as well. They all floated past Zach for only a few seconds, but they left him speechless and gaping like a fish out of water.

A man running on a treadmill, his ears covered with headphones. When Zach crossed his line of sight he waved, as though everything going on around him was just a daily occurrence.

A woman reclining in a bathtub with a mountain of bubbles covering her chest. Her eyes were closed and her head was leaning back against the lip of the tub. 

A boy on a bike, his legs working hard on the pedals. He seemed to know what the danger was but hadn’t quite realized that the danger he was fleeing had already gotten him.

A section from inside a bank that consisted of a floor and a huge wall with a big, circular iron vault door. Two men in masks were pointing shotguns at a scared-looking security guard who was holding up his hands. For a second Zach was sure that the two men would fire, but then a wooden beam crashed into them, sending them flying away screaming. The security guard wiped his brow in relief.

A group of men playing cards at a table, some with cigarettes in their mouths.

A dog with its leash still attached to its collar.

And then there was the car.

It was a sleek red Chevrolet Camaro, its headlights flashing on and off and its horn beeping desperately. Its radio was on and it was playing a classic jazz tune that Zach didn’t recognize. No one was inside it. It cruised past Zach’s classroom, as though it were on a road, and then vanished into the wall of churning clouds, its noises diminishing in the wind. For a moment it was forgotten by Zach, and then it reappeared right across from him on the far side of the cloud-wall, still cruising. Then something big—another car, possibly—struck the Camaro on its side, and it careened towards Zach while spinning, as though it were a top. Zach jumped away, landed on his chest, and covered his head with both hands as the left fender crashed into the wall below the windows. Heavy gray bricks flew, dust trailing them, but fortunately none of them hit Zach. The ruined Camaro was then taken away by the wind and disappeared behind the clouds once more.

Zach got up, brushed the pieces of brick from his hair, and saw that the car had created a huge hole under the window he had stood in front of, turning it into a rudimentary second door to the classroom. As he looked through it, the room suddenly began to tilt to his left, as if on a gimbal. He lost his balance and fell on his side. The desks all began to slide on the floor, some crashing into one another and others tipping over. Mr. Bradley’s own desk tipped over as well, and all of his things—his monitor, his books, his placemat—spilled onto the floor, the monitor’s screen breaking, and the books splaying open. The wind picked up, sending papers flying around everywhere like wild feathers.

The room then began to tilt upwards, and Zach and the desks began to slide towards the wall opposite to the one with the windows. Zach rolled across the floor like a man on fire until his back hit the wall, and then he sat up and watched as the desks piled against each other to his left, creating a small structure that looked like a strange abstract art piece of metal and polished wood. Zach worried that the room was planning to do a reverse somersault in the tornado, but fortunately, it began to right itself up before it could.

During this time the room had been rotating very slowly to the point where Zach couldn’t feel it. Now it seemed to gain speed, rotating faster and faster and making Zach feel slightly nauseous. As it did so it went higher up the sky, towards the clouds that made up the larger portion of the tornado’s funnel. The air around him, thin to begin with, grew thinner by each passing second, causing him to breathe harder. The centrifugal force made by the rotating pressed him against the wall.

A flash of light caught the corner of his eye, and following it was a noise Zach was all too familiar with—a thunderclap, loud and bold in the tornado. Looking at the clouds Zach saw snarls of lightning. They weren’t as big as the lightning bolts from the storm, but they were no less deadly, no, he wasn’t stupid enough to believe that. And with the room hurling right in their direction, who knew where they would strike first?

As if to answer his question, a ray of white lightning suddenly came through the wall to his right, lanced across the room, and hit the floor, creating a smoking black sunflower that smelled of ozone. Another bolt struck the upper-left corner of the room, this time not coming through the room but taking away a large chunk of it, leaving behind a hole with burn marks on its edge. Then yet another came, and another, and another. Soon the room was being bombarded by lightning strikes, some coming through the classroom and others chipping away at it an inch or two at a time.

Zach screamed and pressed his knees to his chest, trying everything in his power to not be hit by a passing bolt. Around him, cracks began to snake their way across the walls, creating black rivers and dark valleys; on the ceiling, the same thing was happening. One of these ceiling-cracks was zig-zagging its way towards Zach, who watched it breathlessly from below. Before it could get to the place he was under, the crack forked into two, and the two new cracks ended at the place above his left and right. Looking up at the triangle-shaped section of ceiling the cracks had made, Zach heard the sound of groaning wood; and then, before he could even think about moving, the whole section fell on him, a plume of sawdust trailing it, sending him off to an early sleep once again . . .

* * *

He woke up several hours later in blackness.

When he opened his eyes, Zach’s first thought was that the blackness he saw was what everyone called the afterlife. Then he felt the smooth drywall ceiling on his face and realized that he was not dead but buried under rubble. He had survived the tornado. He was alive. For how long though, he didn’t know. He knew that sometimes when the body was injured during a great catastrophe, it would numb the pain until the catastrophe passed over. He wondered worriedly that some vital part of him was gravely injured and bleeding out all over the floor in a pool of crimson.

Quickly regaining his consciousness, Zach put his hands against the piece of fallen ceiling and began to push. Nothing happened. He pushed harder, small beads of sweat forming on his brow, and the ceiling began to shift. It was heavy, but Zach knew that if he remained, he would surely die—the paramedics who usually came to look for survivors would probably arrive too late to save him if he did nothing. He put all of the muscle in his arms to work and continued to push until the ceiling finally fell away before him with a dull thud.

The first thing that got Zach’s attention was the bright golden sunlight pouring in through the windows. He shielded his eyes from it and looked down at his legs. They were still buried under some chunks of rubble, making him look as though he was sitting in a strange, chunky bed sheet. He took the rubble off of them piece by piece, and when he was done he inspected them. 

They were still intact, surprisingly; nothing more than a few red slashes here and there. Relieved, Zach checked the rest of his body thoroughly, looking for any part of him that had been torn open or impaled. He saw nothing. Everything was still untouched and in the way they were when he started the day. Satisfied with this, Zach got to his feet, wobbled slightly, and looked around.

The classroom was a mess, to say the least. All of the desks were in a huge cluster at one end of the room, and there were huge cracks running everywhere, some with slanted sunlight coming through them. On the floor were pieces of rubble, broken lights, and everyone's test papers, now all torn up. To his left, Zach saw a fallen air conditioner, its black cord coming out of it like a limp tail, and wondered with great unwillingness what might have happened if he had been under it.

Zach turned his attention away from the mess and to the windows. Outside them, he saw something that made him cock his head like a dog with curiosity: Birch trees, hundreds upon hundreds of them, with large ferns growing alongside them. Never before had he seen so many birches in one place, let alone anywhere in the state of California; he assumed they grew somewhere up north in Alaska or down east in Virginia. His head still cocked, Zach went to the window to make sure they were really there and not some trick of his mind.

They appeared to be real enough, with their zebra-like trunks seemingly glowing in the sunlight. Still skeptical of their reality, Zach slowly walked out to them through the window with the hole underneath it. He went up to one of the trees and caressed it with his index and middle finger. It was as real, alright, as real as the clothes on his skin—he could feel the smoothness of the white bark and the roughness of the black stripes. He stepped back from the tree in disbelief.

Zach turned around and inspected the classroom. It was just as ruined on the outside as it did on the inside, looking as though it had flown through the depths of hell. Each corner of the room sagged outwards, as though it had been placed into a giant crusher and then removed before it could be completely flattened. Huge scorch marks dotted it, and the cracks from inside could be seen outside, channeling their way through the structure. All in all, it looked brittle enough to collapse like a house of cards in a faint breeze if given a good enough shove.

But this grisly sight didn’t bother Zach much. What mattered now was where he was. Never before had he seen so much green before; the only green he ever saw came from the parks or lawns or mountains during the spring at home. And the smell of the place was arousing—the cold sweet-mintiness of birch mixed in with a little sharpness of moist earth. It was a natural scent, and it helped to clear up his mind. Clear up his mind enough to make him remember the events that had taken place a few hours ago.

“Hello?” Zach called. Silence save for a few twittering birds in the trees. He called out again and still nothing. He scanned the woods, hoping to see someone who might’ve seen the classroom fall from the tornado, but saw nothing but birch trees, standing tall and thin like white straws planted into the ground. He called out one last time and then gave up. He would just have to wait for someone to come.

For how long, though?

Did anyone actually know where he was? And if they didn’t, then what would he do? 

Signing, Zach said to himself, “Well, I guess if no one can find me, then I’ll just have to find them,” and started off into the woods, not knowing where he was going; there was no path anywhere in sight. About thirty seconds later he returned to the classroom, having remembered something important.

His backpack.

* * *

Zach walked through the forest, looking for any sign of human life. Most of the life he did see came in the form of squirrels or the occasional deer that fled upon seeing him, but other than that there was nothing. He was growing impatient, and he wondered what may happen if he failed to find any sort of help while walking. Occasionally he sent out a hello, but just like before no response came back. He wondered how long he was going to be there.

I guess I’ll just have to sleep in the classroom, he thought sourly. Better than out here, in the middle of . . . wherever I am.

Where _was_ he, exactly? Surely the tornado couldn’t have carried him to Alaska or Virginia, where the birch forests were. No, that was preposterous. Maybe he had landed in an animal shelter of some kind, one that was hidden from the public. Or maybe he was inside someone’s secret forest, and they had seen his arrival and were searching for him. No— _that_ felt especially preposterous . . . just as preposterous as the tornado lifting the classroom and carrying it with its windy arms, just as preposterous as him surviving it in one piece. In the end, he didn’t give much of a fig about his location: he just wanted to get out of wherever he was as soon as possible.

Half an hour later, Zach saw three large stones standing like monuments, moss and green lichen growing on their smooth surfaces like infections. He walked up to them and sat against the tallest of them, his aching legs spread out in an upside-down V before him. He didn’t know how far he had walked, exactly, but it didn’t matter at that moment and he rested, feeling the cool stone on his back and the soft earth on his hands. In his mind, the events of the tornado played over and over again, and he had an idea that they wouldn’t stop for quite some time.

About five minutes later, Zach was standing and just about to get moving again when he heard the faint sound of rustling leaves from behind the rock in front of him. Having heard this same rustling sound several times before, he assumed it to be a squirrel and ignored it. Then it began to get louder and closer, and he turned in its direction. It sounded like it was passing through the ferns quickly, as if on the run, and he froze with anticipation, his eyes bulging. He had no idea of what kind of creatures lived in these woods, and he didn’t know what he, Zach, or it would do when it arrived. Whatever it was, it was large, and he expected the worst.

Suddenly the thing popped out from behind the rock, and Zach saw that it wasn’t a creature at all but a man. He was tall, slim, had brown combed hair, and was wearing a tweed jacket with elbow patches, black suspenders, a white dress shirt, and, popping out distinctly from the rest of the clothing like a joyful exclamation, a velvet bow tie. When he saw Zach he jerked to a stop, slipping a little on the fallen leaves, a flabbergasted expression on his face that mirrored Zach’s own.

“Well . . . hello there,” the strange man said.


End file.
